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The Texas homeowners’ insurance marketplace is always under stress from our state’s severe weather, from hail to tornadoes to wildfire to even earthquakes. But in recent years, a different kind of threat has emerged: a systematic effort by certain lawyers and associates to abuse both the insurance claims system and the court system for narrow personal gain.

Their well-documented techniques – if left unchecked by the Texas Legislature – threaten to impact all Texans with higher insurance rates, fewer insurance choices and damaged dispute processes.

In 2015, the growing awareness of this issue led the Legislature to direct the Texas Department of Insurance to conduct an in-depth study of both litigation and market data related to homeowners insurance.

TDI’s report, recently issued, clearly confirmed that the state is on the edge of an insurance crisis. The report found an unprecedented 1,400 percent increase in litigation in parts of the state hit with devastating hailstorms. For insurers, the increased expense due to this lawsuit spike is colliding with already high long-term losses that come with operating in Texas: averaged over the past 20 years, insurers operating in Texas have paid out more in claims than they have taken in in premiums.

The unavoidable result – already being seen in hail litigation hotspots – is market destabilization, rate increases and lack of policy options. We can’t do much about the weather; therefore, litigation abuse must be addressed.

What we’re seeing today is reminiscent of the “mold crisis” that created turmoil in the state’s insurance marketplace in the early 2000s. That crisis, created by rampant litigation of “toxic” mold claims between 1997 and 2002, hurt both consumers and insurance companies. Rates skyrocketed (more than 30 percent in some cases) and consumers found fewer choices, as insurance companies left Texas when unpredicted losses led to financial instability. Had policymakers acted earlier to reign in these abuses, consumers would not have been subject to the disruption, uncertainty and severe rate increases of 2001-2003.

Following the 2003 reforms, Texas has seen rates stabilize and insurers return to Texas, giving consumers more choice in product and price.

Now, in 2017, we stand on the edge of another serious crisis in homeowners’ insurance, this time with hail and wind coverage – critical to all Texans – as the new target of abuse. Already we see the leading indicators of a negative change.

For instance, though TDI’s report indicates that increased litigation has not yet forced up rates significantly statewide, it also rightly recognizes that rate follows loss. That means losses from today’s abusive litigation will influence insurer actuarial predictions for future loss. If those loss predictions go up, so will consumer rates. The report also notes some companies already have been forced to raise rates, restrict coverage and stop writing policies in certain parts of Texas in order to lessen losses from abusive lawsuit activity.

Without sound public policy changes during this legislative session, continuing abusive lawsuits will harm all Texans in the future.

Texas needs to address the hail claims crisis now, when reasonable reform can stop abuses before they do massive damage to consumers and companies. Last time, during the mold crisis, we waited too long, and Texans suffered. Let’s be on time in 2017.

Beaman Floyd is executive director of Texas Coalition for Affordable Insurance Solutions (www.tcais.org), an alliance of insurance providers and trade organizations, whose members include Allstate, Farmers, Nationwide, State Farm and USAA.